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AFTERNOON THOUGHTS: THE POSITIVES OF ROH'S HAMMERSTEIN DEBUT, THE RANGE OF OPINIONS STEMMING FROM THE EVENT AND MORE

ROH AT THE HAMMERSTEIN: NOT PERFECT, BUT THAT'S OK

"Kind of a WEIRD show to me. So strange in that... all the stuff I thought would be "EH or just okay" really was awesome... and guys I normally don't like (Albright/Romero) really were booked to the strengths.. and guys that I really was amped for... AD/Maru to an extent Mori/Necro... kind of fell flat...All in all a decent show, but a tad underwhelming given some expectations for the major matches (AD/Maru and Necro/Morishima). Undercard, in my opinion, made this show." - Rob Naylor, www.CZWFans.com

"Boy, I should have stayed home.  ROH simply isn't the same. I expected something like this to have happened with the sex/pedophile scandal but ROH managed to stay strong after that. However, now, ROH is just... boring. 
Its not that the talent isn't good, or the workrate is bad... its just not fun. Its hard to describe my feelings on this subject, but the exodus of talent didn't help and the weird booking also isn't helping either. Maybe the talent was tired from travel or something, but this last ROH show was one of the worst I have ever seen. Period." - Brandon Easton, PWInsider.com Elite Subscriber

"As a jaded old school fan who HAS been to plenty of ROH, I actually felt it was the best paced show they’d ever done in NYC. Starting at 7:45 and ending at around 11:00 (with an intermission no less) it wasn’t the “endurance contest” so many indie shows have become. It just flowed well from quality match to quality match. And each offered something “different”- from world class chain wrestling, to spot fests, to hardcore, to Briscoe’s extreme juice. There was literally something for every taste- I mean, what more can people ask for? Frankly, if you compare 1 show to every single card and match a promotion has ever done, it seems a bit unfair.  For example, I thought the Nigel-Claudio match was excellent. It may not have been on the level of Nigel-Danielson, but I’d be hard-pressed to find too many matches ANYWHERE that are. So why be critical?  Pure and simple, ROH is the best thing out there. And this comes from someone attending thousands of matches since 1974 and who doesn’t like a whole lot of what he sees today." - Evan Ginzberg, Wrestling Then & Now Newsletter

Three of many varying opinions on ROH's NYC return this past Saturday. One of the more interesting aspects coming out of Ring of Honor's Hammerstein Ballroom debut is the range of opinions such at those above, from fans and those within the company alike. Some feel it was the company's best paced show ever, while some feel it was a mediocre event. Still others are horrified that others don't believe the show was as good (or as bad) as they felt. It's an interesting cross-section, to say the least.

Myself, I thought it was a solid effort where a number of things fell into place for the company. There were positives at the end of the night, in my eyes.  Claudio Castagnoli and Naomichi Marufuji took strides forward toward top-rung stardom with the work in their respective losses to Nigel McGuinness and Bryan Danielson.  Rhett Titus and Pelle Primeau went from being just ROH students to full fledged characters.  Kevin Steen and El Generico had another good showing and were again beloved, certainly looking like they are destined for the ROH Tag belts.  The Delirious-Daizee Haze romance storyline began while ROH tried to take Jimmy Jacobs vs. Austin Aries to the next level with some violence.  Roderick Strong remained the FIP heel to beat.

To me, the only real disappointment of the night, as I wrote yesterday, was the Necro Butcher vs. Takeshi Morishima bout.  I'm not sure why, but in my eyes, Morishima had a better brawl with Bryan Danielson the last time they faced in New York City.  Perhaps I unfairly had visions of fans parting the Red Sea as Morishima and Necro brawled around the balconies of the Hammerstein and back and forth stiff punches, but it didn't happen.  So for me, it was a letdown.  Still, at the end of the match, what most fans remembered was that Necro was someone they wanted to cheer and chant for.  Necro got over and that's a hell of a lot more important in the long run.

Which brings me to my point.  There was a lot that happened on the show and from a pacing standpoint, three hours in the Hammerstein Ballroom sure as heck beats four plus hours, elsewhere, but was it the end all, greatest night in ROH?  No, but that's not such a terrible thing, either.

I think some fans (and even some ROH employees) forget that the company was coming off an Orlando swing that is believed by many to have featured the best ROH live event of all time (Supercard of Honor III, for those looking for the DVD), so it was going to be impossible to live up to that hype.  If the company didn't live up to it, that's only a compliment for the bar they've already set for themselves previously, because no one else is going near it, either.  Still, no one hits a homerun every time and it's not like the Hammerstein Ballroom was chanting for refunds.  Had ROH had some orgasmic home run on Saturday, what could they conceivably do to follow up, anyway?

The varying opinions seemed to be a different breed from the usual response after a Ring of Honor event, but with ROH drawing 2,100 fans (according to the source I spoke to as I exited the show), a population of that size means there are 2,100 varying opinions. It's hard to get a group of three fans to agree on something, much less 2,000 plus wrestling fans, some of whom are jaded online "smart" fans.

That's the beauty of professional wrestling in a lot of ways.  Everything is perfect until it gets to the ring. What is one man's "greatest show ever" is another's night of boredom.  The business is a subjective entertainment form. There is always the next show, but you can be guaranteed that for every fan that believes THAT show is a huge improvement, there will be another that sees it as a downward climb. Such is the beauty and the hardship of promoting to a smart wrestling audience. Everyone thinks they know the right answer when the truth is - there is no right answer.

Wrestling fans, good or bad, will never always be 100% satisfied. That's a lesson everyone in the business learns from time to time. It's an important one, because the second a fan base is completely satisfied and sated, they have no reason to continue caring about what happens next and will move onto the next thing.

The ROH fan base, whether they are marks for the product or hate what they are presented, continue to pay their money and continue to care about what happens next.  In today's day and age, that's as much of an achievement as drawing 2,100 fans...especially when every other promotion not named WWE would be doing backflips to draw half of that crowd on a regular basis. Love them or hate them, the passion of that fan base is a powerful asset for Ring of Honor, so they should be thrilled that there are that many fans who care that deeply about their product...and hope that one day, they can double that number, many, many times over.

Mike Johnson can be reached at Mike@PWInsider.com.

My Live Report from the ROH Hammerstein Show can be found on Page 2.

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